


The Effect of Days

by TeaRoses



Category: Hellsing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-26
Updated: 2010-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seras has to watch those around her age, including Walter.  Gonzoverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Effect of Days

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the "30_kisses" theme community on LiveJournal, for the theme "Wada Calcium CD3."

Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. ~~ Dion Boucicault

 

Sir Integral had new shadows under her eyes. Even after years at Hellsing Seras wasn't usually comfortable trying to give her sympathy.

"I know it's daytime already, Seras Victoria, but Walter's nurse is late again and I was hoping you would help me. I know it's really not your job--"

"I can do whatever you need me to, Sir Integral," she answered promptly.

"Thank you," said the knight. "You don't have to help him out of bed. Just bring him his breakfast from the kitchen, please."

Integral reached into her desk. "The doctor gave him these last time he came. Calcium pills, for his bones."

Seras took the bottle. She was nervous, suddenly. It wasn't that she never visited Walter in his rooms on her own; she did that as often as she could bear to. But usually she had some mental preparation for seeing him as he was now. Sir Integral looked at her.

"Sometimes I think he needs to be in a home, for his own comfort. But can you imagine that, after all he's done for this family? Over sixty years of service."

Seras knew this deserved some answer.

"He's still alert, almost all the time," she said. "I'm sure there's no need for that."

She backed out of the room, unsure whether she was more uncomfortable with Sir Integral's unexpected candidness or with her task. She picked up the tray of food in the kitchen and carried it up to Walter's room.

Putting the tray down to knock on the door, she wondered how he would be feeling this morning, and whether it was he who had helped teach Sir Integral to hide her weaknesses.

She heard his voice invite her in, and opened the door to see him sitting up in bed in his pajamas. He was wearing his monocle already though, and reading. He looked over his book at her in some surprise.

"Miss Victoria. Surely they don't have you on kitchen duty?"

"I don't mind, Walter," she said as cheerfully as possible.

He put the book aside. "Next they'll have Alucard himself trotting round with my breakfast."

She placed the tray on his bedside table. He was indeed alert this morning, but there was still something vague in his eyes that troubled her.

"There's a new pill for you. Calcium for your bones, Sir Integral said."

He picked up the bottle and looked at it a bit blankly.

"My bones…" he murmured.

"We can't have you breaking a hip the next time you're out fighting," she said.

He smiled slightly. "I finally put the wires away, you know. I had always hoped someone might be interested in training with them, but there never was anyone. They're tricky to manage, and not as useful as guns I suppose."

"You made great use of them in your day," said Seras Victoria, regretting the last three words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

"And well past my day," said Walter, attempting to open the bottle with shaking hands. "I think they've put a childproof cap on here," he said weakly.

Seras leaned over to take the bottle from his hand. There were finally strands of gray in his hair, and the wrinkles around his eyes were deep now. She shook out a pill and put it into his hand. People aged; everyone knew this. Seras could see the passage of time also in Sir Integral's face, and in everyone except her master. And she had only seen Walter when he was old, not in his famed youth in wartime or the middle years he had occasionally spoken of to her when she joined him watching old movies in the TV room.

But this was the man who had left a partial retirement to help destroy a ghoul army and tear Jan Valentine's arm off. He had flown a helicopter over a terrorized London and survived its crash. He had not been the same after that, but had still made weapons and delivered her blood bags faithfully each day. He had always been one of the only people here who wasn't afraid of her. There ought to be something more for him than a bed and a book, but that wasn't how it worked.

She wasn't sure what upset her more, that this was happening to the Angel of Death or that it would never happen to her.

"Thank you so much," he said to her, looking into her eyes. No one ever seemed to have the nerve to do that, except Sir Integral who was usually looking at her desk or Seras's master who didn't care to look directly at anyone.

"Well, it's nice to have a lovely young lady deliver my medicine, but you have other duties I imagine," He looked toward the light in his window. "In fact, you'll be wanting to get your sleep, won't you?"

She nodded, then leaned over for a moment and kissed him on the forehead. She supposed it was the kind of kiss a girl gave to her grandfather, but he wasn't her grandfather and she had never wanted him to be.

He smiled and patted her hand for a moment. "Take care of yourself, Miss Seras. And take care of Sir Hellsing for me. I worry for her, you know."

Perhaps some things never stopped. Seras closed her eyes for a moment, picturing him running down that hallway after the younger Valentine brother, swinging the wires over his head, protecting a woman who had her own gun.

"I will take care, Walter," she said. "And you also. Perhaps if you feel up to it later, you'll come down and watch a movie with me?"

"I'll try," said Walter. "It's been a long while, hasn't it?"

It had been a very long while. She left then, wondering how many times she could watch this happen to someone she loved before she would lose the meaning of caring and of time.


End file.
